Throughout history, human beings have developed different techniques to protect themselves from external threats, greatly influencing their development through culture, society, population traits and the geopolitical environment in which they were found.
That is why each variant is unique, has different objectives and develops in parallel ways. Precisely for that reason, we will investigate besides the movements or blows that they use, the situation that led them to develop those abilities, their history, the characters that influenced it and the traditions that implied their customs or rituals.
What are contact sports?
The contact sport or combat sport is a type of competition in which two rivals or opponents face each other respecting some rules. Its purpose is to represent real hand-to-hand combat by setting limits that ensure the integrity of the fighters.
They are carried out through the use of various techniques with the intention of defeating the opponent. We can distinguish them according to whether they are carried out by means of strikes, grabs or even the use of weapons. Some have proven their worth by coming to be considered Olympic contact sports. Others, although not Olympic, have thousands of spectators in each of their private evenings. The rest are simply practiced as hobbies or are used exclusively as defense arts or by professional security bodies without any competition of these disciplines.
See also: Punching Bags for Training
History of contact sport
In the West, contact sports date back to 648 B.C.
In Greece, this sport was called Pancrazio or Pankrátion. It means “all skills” and was very similar to mixed martial arts, as the rules were very similar. It was only forbidden to bite, to use weapons, to put the fingers in the eyes or in the mouth.
They fought with uncovered hands and without any kind of protection, there were two categories, children and adults. There were no distinctions by weight and the combat ended when one of the two fighters surrendered, indicating it with his thumb high, was K.O. and even died. This sport was included in the Olympic Games, bestowing glory and dignifying the winners.
In the East, it is difficult to date when contact sports began, as there is very little information. It is said that the origin of the struggle in the East comes from the Indian merchants, people who by their profession “wandered” along unprotected roads and paths where their fate depended on themselves. When transporting goods of value they were frequently assaulted by thieves what provoked by necessity that they developed a system to defend themselves of effective form.
These merchants who traveled all over the East may be the first to teach their techniques in different parts of Eastern geography, thus provoking the great variety of styles that each region has given, having all points in common despite the distance that separates them.
Types of physical contact sports
As we have said before, the schools of each aspect are distinguished between whether they use blows or not, whether they use keys, whether they choke or whether the use of weapons is permitted. In addition, among those who use blows, we can also distinguish between the type of blows that allow being the most common to catalog the use of punches, kicks, elbows, and knees.
The way the punches are executed also creates distinctions since a direct left-hand punch is not executed in the same way on two different slopes. Inside the different sports of physical contact that exist, we are going to include them in 4 categories, the martial arts, the sports of combat, styles of fighting, fight with weapons and all type of materials to practice these sports.
Martial Arts
Martial Arts are the fighting techniques that have been developed in the East and have as a common denominator to go one step beyond the mere fact of learning to defend oneself. In the martial arts, it is not worked in exclusive the fight but to the warrior.
The martial arts are involved in the education and mentality of people getting to be part of their lives in any daily situation no matter how far from the struggle that seems and arose from the needs of a previous civilization and society.
